In addition, hopes of reuniting families of children separated by Trump's controversial separation policy have also been slow-going and the issue of immigration generally has been a source of contention for the new administration. Illustrating the turmoil is a dramatic surge in unauthorized U. There were , just last month, according to U.
During the Trump administration encounters with migrants were lower with monthly totals peaking at nearly ,, according to U. Customs and Border Protection data, overwhelming immigration authorities and leading to overcrowding at Border Patrol facilities. The Biden administration has handled the elevated volume through combination of efforts including the transformation of ICE detention facilities into rapid processing centers and the expansion of migrant child care facilities. Biden administration officials have underscored the elevated rate of repeat offenders as well as the shifting demographics of those coming across.
The number of single adults increased from April to May by about 10, while the number of families and children declined, according to CBP data. Adults are often easier to repatriate while children pose additional challenges of care, education, housing accommodations and health care needs. A majority of those who made illegal crossings were sent back immediately or "expelled" under the controversial "Title 42" process. The order, critics say, drastically cuts access to humanitarian programs for asylum seekers and incentivizes families to send their children across the border alone as it facilitates the return of migrants, including families, to Mexico in a matter of hours.
Single adults and families presenting themselves at a port of entry or apprehended while attempting to cross the border without authorization are currently being expelled under Title When border agents encounter children, the process is different. They are taken to jail-like CBP holding facilities, but they are subject to legal protections that prohibit the federal government from keeping them there for longer than 72 hours before they must be transferred to the HHS shelter system.
At times over the past seven years when resources at the border have become overwhelmed by arrivals of families and unaccompanied children, however, children have been kept in those facilities beyond the legal limit. In recent weeks, there have been reports of children in the facilities sleeping on gym mats with nothing but mylar blankets to keep them warm and not being permitted to go outside or take a shower for days at a time.
The Biden administration has so far prevented the media from touring the facilities, which would offer better insight into the conditions. BuzzFeed reported that, as of Wednesday, more than 3, children in the facilities had been there longer than the legal limit.
The conditions inside HHS facilities are better, but there have been reports of abuses in both permanent and temporary shelters for migrant children over the years, even predating Trump. In one of the most egregious cases, migrant children were administered powerful psychotropic drugs at one shelter south of Houston, Texas, in A for-profit emergency influx center in Homestead, Florida, that once held up to 3, children also came under fire in following reports of sexual abuse, overcrowding, and negligent hiring practices.
More than of the children in that facility tested positive for Covid during the intake process and were isolating. It has a dining hall, dormitories, and an area to meet with legal representation and is decorated with colorful paintings. That makes it difficult for government watchdogs to conduct independent oversight and ensure that the children are being treated humanely and in compliance with legal requirements and are not subject to prolonged periods of confinement. The administration is making it easier for children to be released from those facilities to sponsors.
It terminated a agreement with HHS under which sponsors were subject to more stringent vetting, which involved getting their fingerprints taken and additional paperwork. That information was shared with child welfare and immigration authorities, leaving the sponsors potentially vulnerable to deportation if they did not have legal status.
And it is rushing to increase the number of available HHS shelters and expand bed space in existing facilities while complying with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on Covid Rather, the migrants arriving on the southern border are ones who have fled humanitarian crises in their home countries and who have encountered a system in the US that is ill-suited to offer them protection.
Their arrival has strained existing resources on the border — but unlike the Trump administration, the Biden administration is taking steps to build up the necessary infrastructure to process them humanely.
The same crisis occurred in , when more than , Central Americans, including over 60, unaccompanied children , showed up at the southern border. And it happened again in , when CBP encountered , migrants over the course of just a single month and almost 1 million over the course of the year. Trump sought to keep migrants out and prevent them from being released into the US at any cost — including separating more than 5, families who arrived on the border starting in the spring of Biden has promised a more humane approach to the border.
His officials have also acknowledged that CBP facilities are no place for a child, and they are working urgently to ensure that children are kept in facilities that are suitable and to release them to sponsors more quickly.
But he has kept in place Title 42, the pandemic border restrictions. Like Trump, Biden is also pursuing a regional strategy to mitigate migration. Those countries, however, were not capable of offering protection given that they have high levels of crime and instability and are not used to dealing with an influx of people seeking refuge.
Migration is one of the answers to which they will invariably turn. Secretary Nielsen just signed an accord with Central American governments to combat human trafficking and smuggling, fight transnational criminal organizations and gangs, expand information and intelligence sharing, and strengthen security. This is a positive step. The reality is that even more will need to happen in the realm of sustained, continued partnership to deliver citizen security, improved policing, progress against corruption, and economies that can successfully reintegrate returnees.
There are no quick fixes to the problems now playing out at the border. However, both immediate and longer-term policy solutions are there for the United States if it is serious about managing and reducing further increases in the flows and in addressing the causes of this migration. What is needed is the willingness and staying power to act on these policy solutions.
Skip to main content. You are here Home » Newsroom. April By Doris Meissner and Sarah Pierce. Border Security. Border Enforcement. Asylum Seekers. Jaime Rodriguez Sr. Customs and Border Protection. While only a small percentage of migrants have arrived in caravans, their emergence as a safer mode of travel seems to have led smuggling organizations to more aggressively recruit customers, offering new and more options for getting to the United States.
Customs and Border Protection CBP uses for groups of people or more arriving at the border together. They will be expelled; some of them will undoubtedly try to cross again. After four years of racist, chaotic, anti-immigration policies by the Trump administration — as well as growing desperation fuelled by the pandemic and extreme climate events — the number of people seeking to enter the US is rising.
But advocates in the Rio Grande Valley, where undocumented migrants have long been relied upon for cheap farm labour, reject incendiary claims that the numbers are overwhelming. In , a total of 9, border patrol agents detained an average of almost , undocumented migrants a month on the southern border. In the fiscal year until February, the average was just over 76, a month, but the number of agents is more than double compared with Earlier this month, the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, deployed state troopers and the national guard to the border after claiming, without evidence, that illegal immigrants were spreading the coronavirus.
But illegal or undocumented migrants are not being released into the US. In Texas, everyone else continues to be turned back, say advocates. Texas has one of the slowest vaccination rates in the country. The White House has called out Abbott for refusing federal funds to pay for Covid mitigation measures for migrants.
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